The death of Khaleda Zia, who served twice as Bangladesh’s prime minister (from 1991 to 1996, and then again from 2001 to 2006) on Tuesday has shaken her home country, even though she had lived to the age of 80 and died of natural causes. Although she was not a member of the current interim government, her Bangladesh National Party (BNP) was widely expected to emerge with the largest seat share in parliament following the upcoming general elections in February. Her eldest son Tarique has now replaced her as the official party chair, after several years as the party’s de-facto leader.
Ms Zia’s passing represents something profound, which is the passing of the generation that midwifed Bangladesh’s incredibly violent and divisive birth as a country in 1971. It also marks the end of one of the longest-running feuds in high-level politics anywhere. Her political nemesis, Sheikh Hasina, head of the Awami League (AL), was deposed in August of last year by a student-led movement not long after beginning a record-setting fifth term as prime minister. What remains to be seen is if the segments of the population they represented will continue to be caught up in what was often a deeply personal antagonism.
Despite their decades of mutual hostility and supposed ideological differences, they shared a great deal in common. Neither woman veiled, preferring to project themselves as Bengali matriarchs who are nonetheless very modern. Although both were extremely formidable operators, they had, like other famous female leaders in the region, inherited their leadership positions from male relatives who had helped found their political parties.
Both families were very much on the same side during Bangladesh’s struggle for independence, when the military dictatorship in West Pakistan attempted to suppress the movement through mass killings and roundups. Sheikh Hasina’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was one of the movement’s early revolutionaries, and eventually became Bangladesh’s first post-independence head of state. Khaleda’s husband, Ziaur Rahman, was a Pakistan Army officer who switched sides in response to the repression and led Bangladeshi military resistance operations in the field. He eventually went on to found the BNP, and served as Bangladesh’s sixth president.
After independence, Bangladesh’s political unity quickly faded, despite the fact that the AL and BNP faced common threats, first from radicals who engineered repeated violent mutinies from below (both Mujib and Zia were assassinated while in office under similar circumstances), and later from a military high command that was loath to accept the messiness of party competition.
Although both parties could legitimately point to their liberation credentials, the BNP seemed willing to move on. In contrast, the AL was continually re-fighting 1971 and keeping its horrors fresh, while seeking to monopolise domestic credit for the country’s creation.
The AL also continued to emphasise its liberation war partnership with India and defined national culture in explicitly secular terms. The BNP, in sharp contrast, emphasised Bangladeshi sovereignty, and defined national culture primarily in terms of its Muslim majority, while attempting to balance relations with other partner countries in the West, the Gulf and East Asia.
The question of how Bangladesh gets on with India (which surrounds the country on three sides), as well as its religious minorities is obviously integral to national stability. But there’s also the question of what will happen to the BNP and AL’s style of politics as their leaderships transition.
Part of the reason that the AL was able to retain power from 2008 to 2024 was public and deep state memory of the spectacular levels of dysfunction, instability and corruption during the BNP’s previous term in power. The AL’s repression of the opposition as well as corruption was tolerated as long as it competently fostered rapid and reasonably fair economic growth.
However, the Ukraine war’s effects on food and energy prices exposed just how inadequate the quality of AL governance was. Worse, the AL’s attempt to endlessly relive the traumas and euphoria from half a century ago was absurd to its vast and growing youth population. Its use as an excuse to dole out government jobs to the children and grandchildren of wartime party members converted an already frustrating level of cronyism into an intolerable caste system.
It remains to be seen if the BNP can, in fact, capitalise on this opportunity. Ms Zia’s son Tarique, who stands an excellent chance of becoming Bangladesh’s next Prime Minister, was closely associated with much of what so badly damaged the BNP’s standing between 2001 and 2005.
Like Nepal and Sri Lanka, Bangladesh’s impatient young people are simply unwilling to allow a return to business as usual. If those mistakes are repeated, it’s not impossible that Tarique and the BNP might find his potential time in office cut short by the very same forces that granted him and his mother another shot at power.
